Apricity
by crashmypartyhard
Summary: (n) - the warmth of the sun in winter. When she wakes up, Bryn Bennett doesn't know who she is, or how she got into the woods-but, after meeting Jack Frost, he takes on the responsibility of finding out why she's dead. With the help of the Guardians and her brother, Jamie Bennett, will they be able to find out her past?
1. Wake Up

01

I awoke on my back, staring up into the skinny fingers of tree limbs, inbetween which drifted snow. The flakes drifted down onto me, and as I laid there, I was at a loss as to who I was.

Then I sat up. Took inventory of my surroundings: trees. I sat, stumped (no pun intended), leaning back on my hands buried in the snow. Strange, I thought, shouldn't snow be cold?

I started, bringing my hands up in my field of vision, leaning over my legs, clad in thick tights, covered to my knees by a dress. My hands, although inside gloves, felt warm-warmer than they should be when they're inside thin gloves like these. Pausing at first, I pulled finger by finger and then pulled one of the gloves off. My hand was pale, no surprise there, but there was something else: it was almost a bright pale, it was too pale.

So, I shoved it in the snow. Again, warmth. Confused and a little scared, I shook off the snow and put my glove back on.

I stood up, shaky. A memory was triggered, and thus flashed in my mind: me, looking in the mirror, putting an outfit on. One by one, my feet going into black tights. then slipping a bright red dress on, a black scarf being wrapped by my hands, not as pale as they are now, around my neck. _The recital is going to be good,_ a thought whispered, an accompaniment of the memory. One by one, my arms poked through the other side of the sleeves of a dark grey, wool jacket. My brown hair being pulled up from being caught inside of it and laid over my shoulders. I adjusted my hair after putting boots on, _it's wet out, I'm gonna need these._ Then my hand pulling the door open and walking into a hallway. As suddenly as it came, the memory was gone again.

I looked down at myself. Same outfit, seemingly untouched. What was this about a recital? If I had a recital, wouldn't I be there instead of here...in the woods?

Why _am_ I in the woods?

Whirling around, scanning quickly for a sign of civilization, I didn't find any. So, I looked down at where I was laying. There was an indent of my body. I furrowed my brow at it, like it wasn't telling me something when it should be, and looked up again.

I picked a direction and started walking.

It was a while later of silence, I was listening for a person, I didn't want to invite unwanted creatures by trying to call out, even though I knew the woods somehow, like I'd been here a lot of times before. Snowflakes clung to my curls. Soon, I came to a pond.

The water was impenetrable, except by a hurling force, for it was covered in a thick sheet of ice. My hope had started to head downhill; even though the moon was bright in a cloudless sky to light my way, I still felt on edge.

I started to search my mind for what had happened before this. What did I know about myself? How did I get here? My shock of being in the woods must have suppressed these questions for a while.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't remember anything. And suddenly, I was worried. Fear started creeping up my spine, making me shiver although I was perfectly warm in these no doubt freezing temperatures. If the ice on the pond was this thick, I'd probably be shaking, teeth chattering, arms wrapped around myself, _cold_. So why wasn't I?

I lowered myself to sitting by the pond, careful, expecting the snow to soak through my tights. I sat on my heels, hands clasped in my lap. I tried again to pull some sort of memory from my mind. Again, nothing.

Lowering my forehead into my hands, I made myself breathe slowly. I sighed.

A twig snapped.

Gasping, I looked towards the direction of the sound.

There was a boy in the tree. About my age, I thought-he stood on a limb with lips pursed, crouching, blue hood up, looking worriedly at me as if wondering if I heard that. He held a staff in one hand.

I opened my mouth when he stood, and, just as he turned around, squeaked, "Wait!"

He stopped. His hood hid his face from view as he turned his head to the side, as if deciding whether or not to look at me. He turned back around and as he made a move to jump off the limb-he was what, thirty feet up? I yelled again.

"Stop!"

Determined to keep him from jumping off and killing himself from the fall, I stood and saw the quickest way to him: across the pond. So, I quickly set foot on the pond, walking across with steps flat as possible to keep from slipping. "Don't jump!" I yelled, even though I was confused as to why he was here in the first place.

When I looked up from staring at my feet, I was greeted by his face-I stopped breathing, but stepped back, and then I slipped backwards.

He pulled me back upright without so much as a blink. His eyes stared through the shadow of his hood, pierced the darkness, without a problem.

His hand was wrapped around my arm, his staff in his other hand, when I finally caught up. I stared into his eyes, mine wide with shock. My mouth was half-open, breath still frozen.

When I took a breath to speak, he interrupted. "You can see me?" he asked, a little harshly. His blue eyes were pale, but stared into mine, threatening on the outside, but as I continued to stare at them, there was an intense hope veiled inside.

I stared into his eyes-_like a husky's_-for a short moment more, and then answered. "Yes?" My voice was a whisper.

The emotion in his eyes melted, replaced by interest and relief. He took a breath as if to talk, but sighed instead. It was like he was going to tell me a secret that nobody else must know. He whispered back, probably not to me, "Oh, my God." Then, after another moment, his hand around my arm slipped down to my hand and he squeezed it as he smiled.

Then he threw his arms around me and gave me a near-rib-shattering hug. I stood there dumbly with my arms at my sides for the first half of the hug, and then I slowly wrapped my arms around him. I let him revel in the moment for a moment, and then said, "How did you get up that tree? Wait-uh, how did you get..._down_ that tree?"

He pulled away and looked at me, concerned. "Wait-first, why are you here? In the middle of the night?"

I opened my mouth as if I knew the answer, then looked off to the side and lowered my head, thinking. I took a breath and made eye contact with him, whispering, "I don't know," like it's a secret.

He must see the genuine blankness in my eyes, because his brow furrowed and he pulled down his hood. His hair was white-white like snow. His eyelashes, I finally see them, were the same. His lips were thin like his face, and his brown eyebrows were bunched together in worry.

"What...do you know about yourself?" he asked.

"Um," I paused. "I know I'm dressed for a recital." I looked around again. "I don't know exactly-no, at all-where that is…"

"Do you know your name?"

I answered automatically, instinctively, even though moments before, I hadn't known my name. "Bryn Fleur Bennett."

His breath caught in his throat. He locked eyes with me. "Do you know a...Jamie Bennett?"

Blinking at the name, something itched in the back of my mind. I paused. I answered.

"I don't know."


	2. Real

02

_Jamie's brown head poked out of his bedroom doorway, and he smiled at me. "You ready?" He asked, also dressed nicely, like me. His suit was a little crumpled because he's always doing something, he's always full of energy. _

_I straightened my dress and then leaned down to straighten his tie. With a roll of his eyes he allowed me to, but if it was Mom, he would've cringed away like she was a disease. _

"_Hey, Bryn?" He began, after I'd stood up once more. _

"_Yeah?" I replied. _

"_Good luck," I smiled, but then he added, "Not like you need it, or anything," with a smirk._

_Rolling my eyes this time, I put my hand on his shoulder and ushered him downstairs. _

_The violin had always been a perfect fit for me. It wasn't the whole cliche thing where the child sees the violin and knows its gonna be the instrument they're gonna play for the rest of their life. It was that I asked to hold it, and when I held it, it felt like it should belong to me. The careful craftsmanship of the instrument pulled at my heartstrings, and suddenly, my mom knew what to get me for my birthday. _

_It was hard work, learning how to play-I contemplated giving up many times, but worked myself through it and kept pushing and pulling the bow across the strings. And once I learned to play a few pieces thanks to fifth grade band class, was ready to play their first concert: Burgess' Winter Concert, where the whole of the school performs in a two hour timespan, with breaks. _

_Beforehand, I was shaking like a leaf, heart racing, unsure. Kind words from Mom wouldn't help me, who was taking care of Jamie. But then our band director, tall and skinnily built like the cliche director is, dressed in a suit a smidge too small for him, kneeled to eye-level with me as the other kids filed out to the stage, curtains closed. _

"_Are you okay?" he asked; this was the first time that day I was asked that-I was surprised, and opened my mouth, eyebrows furrowed, a curl or two falling in front of my face. _

_He brushed the curls back in their place, then his hand trailed down to my shoulder and rested, gently, there. "Nevermind that," he began, and made eye contact with me. He had thin-rimmed glasses he only wore on occasion, occasions like these, magnifying his green-brown eyes a little. His beard was trimmed, a fluffy addition to the bottom half of his face. It was part of his character-he wasn't the same without it. "You can do this. I have confidence in you, Bryn, I know you'll be wonderful." _

_He spoke in a whisper, but one filled with excitement. "You're gonna come to love that violin as if it were part of you-maybe you already have,but I know that you're not gonna walk away from this. You're not gonna freeze up when it's your turn to play. After today, you're not gonna be afraid of concerts anymore. In fact, they're nothing to be afraid of-they're beautiful things, you'll see, Bryn."_

_There was a pause as I stared into his eyes. "Don't be scared?" I repeated, softly. _

"_Right," he said. "Now, are you ready?"_

_I looked down at the violin and bow in my hands and smiled softly. "Yeah,"_

_He stood up, smiled a proud smile only for me, and then ushered me out onto stage._

_It was dark as we tuned. Then, suddenly, light flooded in like it was the coming of Christ-momentarily blinded, I gazed out into the audience. The _large _audience. _

_We met eyes again. He winked at me, and I smiled. Then we lifted our instruments, everyone, even the director, taking a breath of air, for playing and for preparation-_

_His name was Tomas Nathaniel Beauregard. _


End file.
